News from around the web: 2009-08-23

For a few precious weeks this summer, all eight houses on this cul-de-sac about 60 miles east of Los Angeles were occupied, but the housing bust that has come to define the landscape and economy of Southern California — and much of the country — has fundamentally changed the block.

"The often cited example is that of a parent arousing at a baby’s whimper but sleeping through a thunderstorm," he said. "That dramatizes the ability of the sleeping human brain to continuously process sensory signals and trigger complete awakening to significant stimuli within a few hundred milliseconds."

In last year’s campaign debates, Obama liked to cite his unlikely Senate friendship with Tom Coburn, of all people, as proof that he could work with his adversaries. If the president insists that enemies like this are his friends — and that the nuts they represent can be placated by reason — he will waste his opportunity to effect real change and have no one to blame but himself.

In 1936, officials decided to increase reserve requirements in three steps—from 13 percent to 26 percent on transactions deposits and from 3 to 6 percent on time deposits . . . The chart shows the dates of each increase in reserve requirements. The policy was successful in reducing both total excess reserves and the ratio of excess to total reserves. However, interest rates also rose, money stock growth declined sharply, and in May 1937 the economy entered a recession

My feeling is that the Spain of Zapatero looks more and more like the Hungary of Gyurcsany with every passing day, and I say this more from the point of view of the twin deficit problem, and the impression the administration gives of things being totally out of control and no one knowing what to do, than anything else… For the record, I predict the IMF will have a permanent delegation in Madrid before 2011 is out.

Poland and the Czech Republic had agreed last year to host parts of the U.S. global missile shield with the Bush White House, but Barack Obama has said he needs to review the costs and viability of the controversial plan. "We expect to learn the results of the U.S. review in September," the minister, Stanislaw Komorowski, told Reuters on Friday.

I’ve traveled the world from Oslo to Osaka to see how other developed democracies provide health care. Instead of dismissing these models as "socialist," we could adapt their solutions to fix our problems. To do that, we first have to dispel a few myths about health care abroad

I don’t agree with this but it is worth a look. "President Obama recently defended American combat in Afghanistan as a "war of necessity," not a "war of choice." He borrowed this deceptively neat distinction from Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations and author of a recent book on the subject. And proving how unhelpful it can be, Haass quickly corrected the president. No, Afghanistan is a "war of choice," he declaimed in the New York Times, "Mr. Obama’s choice.""

If you want to see this president succeed, as I do, you can construct an alternative narrative in which he is throwing dust in the eyes of opponents and resolutely moving toward goals that are worthy, if not as exalted as those originally proclaimed. But it hasn’t felt that way in this uneven August. In Washington the old saw about perception being reality is all too true. And all too final, once an impression of unsteadiness has been etched onto public opinion.

I sent this Op-Ed proposal to the New York Times on Friday. Perhaps they will print it… Zerohedge.com is a finance-focused weblog bringing together nearly 40 anonymous contributors dedicated to providing the public with a deeper, more detailed discourse on all things finance. After less than ten months since our first post, we’re among the top online publications nationwide in terms of readers, eclipsing other properties with several years of history, A-list contributors, and the backing of the country’s largest, mainstream media firms. Like many publications before us, not least the Federalist Papers, we encourage our contributors to use pen names. Part of our rationale in adopting..anonymity… is to avoid making “the story” about the messengers rather than the message.

"In April 2006, Barron’s published an essay I wrote titled "Retiring on Less Than a Million." With a retirement fund then in the mid-600-thousands, I counted on a yield of about 8% on income-producing instruments to allow me to take regular withdrawals and not deplete my assets." I’m sure you know what happened then. Altogether, a good story.

It’s still early, but people are starting to lose faith in the president. I hear almost daily from men and women who voted enthusiastically for Mr. Obama but are feeling disappointed. They feel that the banks made out like bandits in the bailouts, and that the health care initiative could become a boondoggle. Their biggest worry is that Mr. Obama is soft, that he is unwilling or incapable of fighting hard enough to counter the forces responsible for the sorry state the country is in.

China’s secret may be more than just one secret. Here is a list (probably incomplete): 1. They accumulated a national surplus, not a national debt. 2. The government has tight control (de facto ownership) of the banks. 3. The banks serve the rest of the Chinese economy, not the other way around. 4. The Chinese stimulus was large; the U.S. was much smaller. 5. The Chinese stimulus has been much more effectively channeled into employment than in the U.S.

Edward Harrison is the founder of Credit Writedowns and a former career diplomat, investment banker and technology executive with over twenty five years of business experience. He has also been a regular economic and financial commentator in print and on television for the past decade. He speaks six languages and reads another five, skills he uses to provide a more global perspective. Edward holds an MBA in Finance from Columbia University and a BA in Economics from Dartmouth College.